


This Petrified Heart

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crime Scenes, Forests, Holding Hands, Making Up, Sherlock doesn't know how, but he knows trees, like he knows ash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 10:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1301392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This,” Sherlock says, “looks like a perfectly average oak forest.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Petrified Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mydwynter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydwynter/gifts).



> Title from Phillip Larkin, "A Stone Church Damaged by a Bomb"  
> Oak forest for mydwynter.

 

“This,” Sherlock says, “looks like a perfectly average oak forest.”

“There's a woman lying dead,” John says, toes the humus. The wind shakes the dry leaf;crowcalls, a pair, from a moss-twisted bough.

“Well, yes.” Sherlock twitches, doesn’t dare a smirk. “We know by now you can do better.”

 The air’s mycelium and rot, fallow and roe, a reminder.

 “What am I doing here?”

 “John.”

Sunday, rain, _Mycroft_ ; diplomat’s daughter, 32, two days missing,wedding planner, greyhound lover, hunter of antique plates and gatherer of information, stray--

“You want cause of death,” John says, looks down at nailbeds, rhizomes; up at old foliage, scarred bark.

Sherlock’s lids drop, fingertips flip through _Quercus robur_ , pedunculate oak, John’s eyes, wounded, _he still hasn’t_ \--heartwood, saponins, hybrid with sessile-- _forgiven_ , oh, biodiversity, pathogens, acute oak decline, powdery mildew, sudden oak death canker bleeding from the bark, oh--

“It might look average, but it’s been here thousands of years. And will be despite … you know, after we’re gone.”

_I don’t know how; I still don’t know._

“Sherlock, I…”

A leaf spins down, catches, antler-fragment, over an ear.

John’s hand descends on Sherlock’s wrist, closes warm as a mouth.

_I forgive you. Again._

The wind shifts. Something thumps in the earth, ephemeral, bloodroot and bone.

They bend, creak in the gust, breathe together over the body.

**Author's Note:**

> [England's old old trees](http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/27/history-of-englands-forests)   
>  [ Wistman’s Wood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wistman%27s_Wood_in_winter.jpg)


End file.
